The adoption of a child by a non-Jewish family does not invalidate his right to make aliyah to Israel in accordance with the Law of Return, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz told the High Court of Justice on Monday.

Mazuz's issued his opinion in response to a petition filed by Regina Bernik, who asked to make aliyah to Israel by virtue of her father's Jewishness, although she was adopted by a non-Jewish couple as a child.

Bernik's request was turned down by the Interior Ministry, and she decided to challenge it at the High Court.

The biological offspring of a Jew who was adopted as child by a non-Jewish family, and who seeks to make aliyah, is entitled to do so by virtue of his own affiliation and blood ties with the Jewish people, Mazuz stated.

It is clear, therefore, that the struggle is not between the chief education officer and the chief military rabbi, but rather between two spiritual movements.

One movement is represented by those who attack the chief military rabbi - people who are responsible for ambivalence in the IDF and undermined its complete faith in the righteousness of its path. As a result, its operational abilities have been compromised.

The opposing group is the one that budded in Operation Cast Lead.

This trend is based on full identification with the Zionist and nationalist roots, not necessarily religious ones, of the State of Israel.

The writers are infantry reserve fighters called up to serve in the Gaza war.

There is a problem with the growing tendency to provide religious elements with a monopoly on values and fighting spirit, and particularly with the legitimacy granted to organizations with a missionary and messianic character to operate amongst the soldiers.

Most of the commanders in our division are religious, yet up until the last war there was complete separation between their private world and their military position.

If we fail to clearly draw the line right now, in a few years we shall find ourselves shifting from wars of choice or no-choice to holy wars.

On Tuesday the Chief Rabbinate of Israel broke off official ties withthe Vatican indefinitely in protest over the Pope's decision to reinstate a known Holocaust denier.

The Chief Rabbinate also canceled a meeting scheduled for March 2-4 in Rome with the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.

In a letter to the commission's chairman, Cardinal Walter Casper, Chief Rabbinate Director-General Oded Weiner wrote that "without a public apology and recanting, it will be difficult to continue the dialogue."

Magistrate's Court Judge Menahem Klein refused Wednesday to recuse himself from a lawsuit involving sorcery and curses, on the grounds that the Orthodox judge would not be impartial in the case.

The case involves a suit brought by Eti Cohen, who is demanding her money back from Sana Koma, whom Cohen paid to lift a curse.

Koma said Klein should recuse himself because Orthodox Judaism, which he follows, prohibits the act of sorcery.

In his decision, Klein wrote that people could not "shop" for another judge just because the judge assigned has a different way of life.

Klein said doing so would be "a severe blow to faith in the judicial system."

Klein also wrote that even if he started with the assumption that Koma's acts constituted sorcery according to the Torah, financial issues between Cohen and Koma were still being governed by general contract law and had nothing whatsoever to do with religious prohibitions.

"There is no contradiction between my way of life and my function as a judge in the modern State of Israel," Klein wrote.

Rabbi Seth (Shaul) Farberreceived his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University and his rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. He is the founder ofITIM: The Jewish Life Information Centerand rabbi of Kehillat Netivot in Ra'anana.

What is needed now is a social upheaval that challenges recalcitrant men at the most basic level. Similarly, a recommitment on the part of therabbinicalcourts to making theiragunahdesk a professional institution would make a marked difference in the "getrefusal" business

I have been involved in a number of cases of tracking down missing husbands, most recently in a case that involved ahusband who was found in Indonesiaa few months back, and who sent his wife agetlast month.

But, as we say in Hebrew preventative action is always desirable. Groups likeICARandMavoi Satum have begun the public fight.

But until the public is sufficiently outraged, men will continue to abuse the system of Jewish law, and their wives as well.

A bit of ultra-Orthodox history took place on Friday: Shas Chairman and Industry, Trade and Labor Minister, Eli Yishai, paid Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv a visit at his Jerusalem home. Elyashiv is the spiritual leader and patron of the Degel Hatorah faction of Agudat Yisrael.

It has been years since Yishai was invited to meet a leader of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox public.

Yishai and Meshulam Nahari, another Shas minister, were rewarded with the sought-after picture of the two beside the Ashkenazi rabbi.

Yishai did not show up empty-handed. He and Nahari said they had managed to obtain another NIS 162 million from the Finance Ministry for yeshivas, in addition to the NIS 140 million already budgeted.

The money made headlines in the ultra-Orthodox press and garnered a lot of praise for Shas from influential Ashkenazi rabbis.

Just hours earlier, Yishai had managed to head off an attempt to depose religious court judge Rabbi Avraham Sherman.

Yisrael Beiteinu is expanding its electoral support in low-income, peripheral towns that used to vote almost exclusively for Shas.

In recent weeks activists for the hawkish party, headed by Avigdor Lieberman, have garnered new support in the southern towns of Netivot and Ofakim.

"I've always voted for Shas, but Lieberman is Aryeh Deri's replacement," said Yossi, a resident of Sderot, referring to the former Shas chairman, who was indicted and charged with fraud.

"He, too, is being hunted by the police. He speaks the truth - something all the other politicians are scared to do."

Few ultra-Orthodox voters in Ofakim and Netivot will publicly admit to not supporting Shas, but community leaders say they are aware of the phenomenon and are trying to persuade voters not to jump ship.

"I'm certain many Haredi voters will choose Lieberman but later claim that they voted for Shas," Gideon, a resident of Ofakim, said.

According to a Kol Chai Radio report on Erev Shabbos, Maran Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv has released a ‘kol korei’ instructing the tzibur to get out and vote on February 10th in the upcoming general elections.

Rav Elyashiv Shlita states voting is not optional, but the responsibility of every community member as to ensure the gains of the chareidi community achieved by its representatives are not lost in the coming Knesset.

Less than two weeks before the general elections many in the ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi public are calling on their sector not to vote for the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, which traditionally represents the community.

This stems from the growing disappointment regarding the party's poor political achievements, the internal conflicts between Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah, and the failed struggles over independent education.

The Forum of Chareidi Mayors convened for a first time on Tuesday in the presence of Minister of Industry & Trade, Shas leader Eli Yishai, towards addressing the housing shortage in the chareidi sector.

Bnei Brak Mayor Rav Yaakov Asher stated the chareidi community must obtain a foothold in the Israel Lands Administration, for failure to do so would doom any major project addressing the needs of the chareidi community.

He expressed his hope that following the election, a chareidi minister will oversee the Ministry of Housing and this will permit moving ahead towards achieving these goals since the minister will also oversee the Israel Lands Administration.

Betar’s mayor also addressed the public transportation issue. He explained that now, Illit Bus Company has taken over the bus routes from Betar Tours…

The first technological college for ultra-Orthodox women was inaugurated in Israel this week, in the city of Netanya.

The college's opening marks a change in the way the financial viability of haredi households is being perceived.

The pioneering move was lead by the director of the Beit Margalit school chain for haredi girls, Rabbi Yigal Krispel, with the support of Shas' spiritual leaders and of Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai of Shas.

Rabbi Yigal Krispel:

"In order to enable families to earn a decent income, it has been decided to open another job training channel that will operate in the spirit of our institutions, with a separation between men and women."

Former Jerusalem deputy mayor YehoshuaPollackis to fill the Knesset seat left vacant by the death earlier this week of United Torah Judaism MK Rabbi Avraham Ravitz.

Pollack, who had held the city's planning and construction portfolio and who is currently the treasurer of Betar Illit, will serve for about four weeks, until the 18th Knesset is convened on February 24.

Although Pollack might still reap some benefits from his short stint in the Israeli parliament, it won't change much about his current rather difficult situation.

After losing the battle during the mayoral elections - some say because of his provocative remarks and attitude before the mayoral campaign - it was clear that Porush would be the one to retain his position at the top of the haredi list to the Knesset, while Pollack would more or less politely be sent to earn his living elsewhere - Betar Illit, for example, with a much less dazzling status and salary (though much better, at least for the moment, than his former Shas colleagues, who became simple members of the city council, without salaries or a particularly stellar status)

During a year in which government ministries posted a 73- percent increase in newspaper advertising, the neglect of the chareidi sector was especially noteworthy.

A survey conducted by Ifat Advertising Monitoring and commissioned byYated Ne'emanshowed the extent of the scandal: 230,000 column inches were aimed at the general public, compared to 17,250 for the chareidi public.

Entire advertising campaigns, and especially job listings, were nowhere to be found in the chareidi press.

A large portion of government ministries totally exclude the chareidi sector. They omit chareidi newspapers, not including them in their general campaigns.

Most of all they have no interest in hiring chareidim as rank-and-file civil servants. Fact: State job listings, which are advertised extensively in the general press, do not get advertised in the chareidi sector at all.

The father of an eight year-old girl whose life was saved thanks to an organ donation from an eight year-old boy killed in a car accident said Wednesday that as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, he or his family would never donate organs themselves.

A protest of hundreds of employees of the Jerusalem Religious Council was called off at the last moment on Monday as a result of the intervention of Jerusalem Councilman Rav Yosef Deutsch, who brought the matter of the capital’s ailing religious council to the attention of Mayor Nir Barkat.

The Herzliya religiouscouncilhas embarked on an NIS 3.6 million "recovery plan" that will set its budget for the coming years and will see three out of its 25 employees taking early retirement, reportswww.local.co.il.

The religiouscouncil, the citycounciland the Ministry ofReligious Servicesall agreed to contribute NIS 1.2 million each to the recovery plan, which follows several difficult years for religious councils around the country.

After years of enduring Kassam attacks from Gaza, Sderot's hesder yeshiva plans to consecrate on Thursday a specially-built, rocket-proofbeit midrash,or study hall, the first of its kind ever erected in Israel.

The five-story building was constructed using tons of reinforced concrete, along with blast-proof windows and other specially-designed structural components, yeshiva spokesman Josh Hasten toldThe Jerusalem Post.

The school, which has been operating in Sderot for 15 years, has over 500 students who combinemilitary servicewith traditional yeshiva studies.

In a potentially groundbreaking move, leaders of the North American network of Jewish charitable federations are considering a plan to end their exclusive funding relationship with their two main overseas partners.

Chairman of the Jewish Agency’s board of governors, Richard Pearlstone:

“We fear that United Jewish Communities is on the way to abandoning its obligations and responsibilities to the hundreds of thousands of Jews we serve every day, with the clear result of deconstructing the historic partnership between JAFI and the federations of North America.”

The study reports strong feelings of connectedness and mutual concern between the world's two largestJewish communities, inthe United Statesand Israel, each of which accounts for some 40 percent of world Jewry.

Among the report's findings, Israeli Jews reported a slightly higher identification as "Jews" than did Americans, suggesting that they see themselves as Jews first, Israelis second.

How did a few thousand exiled Jews from ancient Judea and Samaria traverse the entire Middle East, Europe and Asia to end up 2,700 years later in isolated border regions and backwater villages dotted from northeast India to Nigeria?

…They all want to make aliya as soon as possible and are awaiting approval by the government to do so.

In Jerusalem, the Interior Ministry is dead-set against the mass aliya of the Bnei Menashe, preferring a quiet policy of allowing small groups of them to come on tourist visas, after which they undergo conversion.

In the past, rabbis were sent to convert the Bnei Menashe in India, a practice which came to an abrupt halt when the Christians in the area cried foul, leaving the government with no choice but to kick the rabbis out and ban conversion on Indian soil.

A solution was found to a 35-year court battle over a Muslim cemetery in Jaffa Thursday. According to the plan, yet to be approved by the Israeli Land Administration (ILA), the entrepreneur who owns the land on which the cemetery is situated will receive rights to an adjacent plot, leaving the cemetery untouched.